Hidden Valley

Without the protection of the Holy Flame's lingering glow, even the air had turned grimly cold.

As Xiao Fan ran, his thoughts raced, recalling and analyzing everything that had happened to him this time!

Wu Xiong was clearly nothing more than cannon fodder. The key lay with the man behind him—Qin Han.

Qin Han was a notorious young scoundrel in the capital, the son of Qin Hui, the Deputy Grand Secretary of the Inner Cabinet.

Among the court's high ministers, aside from special offices such as the Shadow Pivot Court, the Chief Grand Secretary of the Inner Cabinet stood at the head of all officials, with the Deputy Grand Secretary directly beneath him. Their power could blot out the sky.

Especially in recent years, with the Crown Prince growing weak and the Fourth Prince's prestige steadily rising, Qin Hui had hitched his wagon to the Fourth Prince. His influence now showed signs of overshadowing even the Chief Grand Secretary's.

That wastrel Qin Han had only grown more overbearing in the capital by relying on his father's power.

The more Xiao Fan thought about it, the more his scalp prickled. Wu Xiong's backer was Qin Han, and the city gate captain Zhang Bin was also one of Qin Han's lackeys!

Could that really be a coincidence? Probably not...

Besides, Qin Han did not even know Xiao Fan. Why would he go to such lengths?

Behind Qin Han stood Qin Hui, and Qin Hui had already sworn allegiance to the Fourth Prince. The Fourth Prince and the Crown Prince were like fire and water... Coupled with the Crown Prince's care for Ji Xuanyuan...

"Could the Fourth Prince be behind all this?"

Xiao Fan vaguely felt the threads of the matter beginning to surface.

But after thinking that far, he quickly rejected his own conjecture. Things could not possibly be that simple!

The Fourth Prince was indeed at odds with the Crown Prince, but what kind of move was kidnapping Ji Xuanyuan just to suppress the Crown Prince? What purpose would that serve?

It was simply drawing legs on a snake—an utterly superfluous move. Not only would it fail to harm the Crown Prince in the slightest, it might even bring trouble down upon himself.

"No... that can't be the logic of it."

Xiao Fan's line of thought broke off there. He still had far too little information.

"Once I find Father, I need to find a chance to meet this Qin Han!"

Xiao Fan muttered to himself, a plan taking shape in his heart.

After racing for nearly two hours, Xiao Fan finally arrived at the foot of Great Azure Mountain! The entrance to Hidden Valley lay ahead.

Yet the sight before him left Xiao Fan frozen in place, unable to move forward...

The entire gorge was completely blanketed by layer upon layer of white mist. He could not see the road within at all.

White fog curled through the valley, as though it were no place of the human world.

The closer he came to the valley mouth, the more hair-raising it became.

It was unlike the biting cold wind of winter. This was a stifling, sinister chill, a deathly aura that pierced through the skin and reached straight into the soul.

"There's something wrong with this fog! Could it be Night Erosion?!"

Xiao Fan muttered inwardly, a sense of foreboding rising within him...

He was not making such a leap out of nowhere.

Night Erosion phenomena were not all mutations of flesh and blood; all manner of warped abnormalities were possible.

According to the Bureau of Celestial Observation's records, more than a hundred types of Night Erosion phenomena were currently known—ghost walls, bottomless pits, desertification of the sea's surface, deserts turning into marshes, and so on.

Mutations of flesh and blood were only a small fraction of them.

The bizarre white mist before him immediately triggered Xiao Fan's Night Erosion PTSD.

To be safe, waiting until dawn before entering would certainly be far safer.

But he could not wait.

His father's fate was still unknown. It had only just passed the Hour of the Pig, and there were no fewer than four hours until dawn. How could he wait?

This strange white mist had appeared from who knew where, and he did not know whether Night Erosion had caused it. Once he entered, there might be no turning back.

Xiao Fan helplessly shook his head. After gathering his courage and closing his eyes to take several deep breaths, he charged resolutely into the bizarre white mist.

The good news was that his malefic toxin value system showed no reaction whatsoever, and his malefic toxin value had not increased in the slightest.

That meant the strange mist here was not Night Erosion!

For Night Erosion was, in essence, caused by localized malefic toxins naturally arising between heaven and earth.

Within an environment tainted by malefic toxins, one would inevitably be corroded, and the malefic toxin value would rise accordingly, just as it had when he encountered Night Erosion the previous two times.

Yet this time, his malefic toxin value showed no reaction at all, and he himself felt no sign of the malefic toxins deepening within him.

Not Night Erosion... At least that counted as good news.

But the bad news was that the moment he entered the valley, the surrounding environment began to feel wrong.

Xiao Fan knew the terrain of Great Azure Mountain.

Yet the surroundings at this moment were utterly different from what he knew. Both the road into the valley and the road out of it had changed!

It was clearly the same place, yet it seemed like two entirely different realms.

Not only had the terrain changed completely, even the plants growing in the valley had become different species.

The ground was covered in swamps and mud pits, while the surrounding trees looked bizarre, with nothing but crooked, twisted branches like a wrung-out rag, utterly devoid of life.

Things had come to this; he could only grit his teeth and continue exploring.

The farther he went, the thicker the fog became, accompanied by the rotten stench of corpses.

His heart was practically lodged in his throat. Even the slightest rustle of wind or grass could set off his tightly wound nerves.

The rotten stench ahead grew increasingly pungent.

Patter... patter...

Slow footsteps drifted faintly from within the mist.

Out of caution, Xiao Fan stopped to listen, judging the other party's position and distance from the changes in its footsteps.

Sure enough, the footsteps gradually grew louder. Something really was approaching him.

"May I ask who comes from ahead?"

Xiao Fan called out tentatively.

Patter... patter...

There was no response, only those slow, eerie footsteps drawing ever closer.

The white fog hung thickly around him. Beads of sweat the size of beans formed on Xiao Fan's forehead, and a sense of foreboding rose in his heart.

Suddenly, the footsteps in the white fog stopped. Xiao Fan froze slightly, uncertainty filling him.

A low roar came from ahead, and a humanoid shadow suddenly sprang out of the white mist!

Xiao Fan had been mentally prepared. He twisted aside, barely evading it.

When he turned to look, he saw a humanoid rotting corpse, its entire body decayed and mangled beyond recognition.

Chunks of rotten flesh hung from its horrifying skull. One eye had long since vanished, leaving only a dark, hollow socket, while its two blackened skeletal hands flailed wildly about, sending chills down one's spine.

It opened its bloody maw, revealing blackened, cracked teeth. A wave of foul stench rushed straight at him, enough to make him vomit.

"Corpse ghoul!"

Xiao Fan dodged and shifted, evading the corpse ghoul's pounce. He drew the short sword he had picked up from Wu Xiong, aimed at its ruined head, and brought the blade down!

Squelch!

The corpse ghoul's head separated from its body, and it fell to the ground.

After all, he was a ninth-rank martial artist. Dealing with a mere corpse ghoul was no difficult task.

Xiao Fan breathed a sigh of relief and was about to turn away when the headless corpse ghoul suddenly sprang up again, waving its two black skeletal claws as it pounced at him once more.

"Looks like unless the evil is purged, the corpse ghoul will never rest!"

Xiao Fan swung the short sword backhandedly, hacking it eight inches deep into the headless corpse ghoul's chest and abdomen, then used the momentum to pin its body to the ground.

With his other hand, he wiped across the wound, letting blood drip onto the corpse ghoul.

His hand seals shifted, and he pointed with two fingers like a sword. "Fire Element Art!"

Boom!!! The blood ignited explosively!

In an instant, the corpse ghoul let out a shrill, miserable screech!

Flames engulfed the rotting corpse in the blink of an eye.

The headless corpse ghoul struggled desperately in the blazing fire, but it soon fell still, turning into a charred, withered skeleton.

Before he could even catch his breath, a creaking sound came from the vast, dense fog.

Then, from all directions came the successive creaks of grass being pressed aside, along with those scalp-numbing low growls.

Eerie cries rang out on all sides!

Xiao Fan's heart instantly went ice-cold, and he could not help cursing inwardly, "Did I fucking stumble into a corpse ghoul nest!?"